Sphero’s long-awaited Force Band is set to arrive in the UK on September 30, and will be joined by a special edition, remote-control Sphero BB-8 droid.
For the budding Jedi amongst you, the Force Band is quite possibly the ultimate toy. It’s basically a wearable smartband with a built-in accelerometer that lets you control the Sphero BB-8 droid with the motion of your hand. So you sweep your hand up, down, left, and right to push, pull, and steer the droid, almost as if you were using the Force. Very cool.
There’s also a new app with a Force training mode, that lets you complete certain Force mini-games to master your Jedi Knight abilities. Other features include a combat training mode that lets you pretend to control a lightsaber, complete with swoosh-y noises, and a Force awareness mode that lets you unlock digital holocrons – basically card collectibles – in your environment.
These holocrons will give you new tools to use in the app, include 9 different lightsaber noises, Han Solo’s blaster noise, spaceship sounds, and a bunch of different noises from creatures of the Star Wars universe.
The Force Band is shipped free in a new special edition Sphero BB-8 bundle that sees the once-clean droid get a new, distressed makeover. Sphero has doubled the amount of hand-painted decorations on the model to around 250, giving BB-8 a dusty, battle-hardened aesthetic. Sphero tells us it hopes the rugged new design will appeal to more serious fans of the Star Wars franchise.
Battery life is around an hour for both the Sphero and the Force Band, and they take around three hours to charge – Sphero assures us that you can hit 80% charge very quickly, mind. Also, if you’re only using the Force Band for finding holocrons, rather than controlling the Sphero, then you’ll get a couple of days usage per charge, apparently.
The special edition Sphero BB-8 bundle will set you back £179, and will be available in the UK from September 30. The Force Band can be purchased separately however, at a lower price of £69.
Related: IFA 2016
Watch: AC Worldwide Star Wars Speaker Review
What do you think of the new Sphero BB-8 and Force Band? Let us know in the comments.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.